All this talk of oceanfront holes, whether it's 16 at Cypress Point, 5 at Pebble Beach, or anything where you inhale the salt-air as you play...
Most will agree that being alongside of the ocean improves the hole, or at minimum, improves the setting which may serve to enhance the "total golf experience" of playing the hole.
Ask any player what his favorite hole at Pacific Dunes is and he will likely point to 4, 10, 11, or 13. Yet, Tom Doak names among his favorites the inland 2nd and 6th.
Ask about Cypress Point and most will without hesitation say 16, with many singing praises of 15 and 17 as well, yet the architecture contingent makes a strong case for 9.
It's easy to see that the ocean no doubt props up holes that would otherwise not be considered world-class - 6, 7, and 10 at Pebble Beach come to mind, as do literally hundreds of others around the world.
Often times on GCA we fall into the trap of over-reacting to what we believe is the "Average Joe Opinion".
The Average Joe thinks Fazio and Nicklaus are the pinnacle of course design. While their work is, even when scrutinized by the most ruthless critics, held up to be perfectly fine (just perhaps not revolutionary) many on GCA.com seem to pan it as worthless, useless, and an utter waste of a couple hundred acres of land. In some cases when discussiing these gentlemen, you'd think the top-dressing on the greens of their courses was laced with LSD (assuming you understand LSD to be a bad thing)
Likewise, many of us fancy ourselves above the trap of letting the ocean have an impact on our opinion of any given hole...that we can somehow seperate the two.
I've admitted it many times before...I am an ocean whore. The setting, to me, plays prominently in the "total golf experience" and I am guilty of giving passes (and happily so, I might add) to otherwise mundane holes that just so happen to enjoy spectacular scenery.
The 3rd at Monarch Beach in Dana Point, CA, is a disaster of a golf hole - an awkward short par 4 that, if measured along the outside of the dogleg, might hit 325 yards, but as the crow flies is closer to 250. Still, if given the choice between this hole or a halfway-decent parkland 4-par with no real good but no real bad, I'll play the disaster on the shore.
So my question is not the obvious "What are average holes that are considered good because they are on the ocean". No, my friends, my question is rather:
What holes feature great architecture but are either overlooked or denounced by architecture critics because most Average Joes just see it as eye candy - On which holes do we overlook GREAT architecture on simply because the hole is on the ocean and calling it great would appear to be the "easy" conclusion?
To me, the poster child from my modest travels is the 4th at Bandon Dunes. In fact, that entire golf course might be the poster-child for this (but that's a different thread). The 4th hole to me is absolutely world class. You put that hole on any golf course and it's a strong hole. The tee shot has both mystery and a risk-reward element, and the second shot is all-world to a wonderful green complex. Couple this with the "reveal" of the green as you walk to your ball in the fairway and the diagonally-situated green with a downhill approach and to me, you've got a real winner.
Yes, 4 at Bandon Dunes was honored with some sort of award (commemerated in a plaque on the tee - I don't recall the publication) but to me it should be mentioned in the same breath at minimum with the 4th and 13th at Pacific, and at maximum as potentially one of the best medium-length par 4s in the world.
Despite the fact that I think the setting on the cliffs in Bandon improves the hole and the total golf experience, I think this same setting may actually harm its stature in the eyes of architecture critics. Nobody want's to look like an easy sell, and to those concerned with appearing as an easy mark, the ocean might in fact be the greatest gimmick of all.